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The Beverly Hillbillies

Deciding to move to Beverly Hills to take advantage of their new-found wealth, the Clampetts find that their down-to-earth lifestyle clashes with the new suburb and its shielded, upper-class inhabitants.

Jethro Bodine

Max Baer Jr. The son of former heavyweight boxing champion Max Baer, Max Baer Jr. is a classic (except probably to ...

Character Bio

Jethro is the son of Jed's cousin, Pearl Bodine. He drove the Clampett family to their new home in California and stayed on with them to further his education. The whole family boasted of Jethro's "sixth grade education" but nevertheless felt he was a bit of an idiot. Jethro was simply naive in the first season of the show, but became incredibly ignorant and pompous as the series progressed. He often showed off his cyphering abilities with multiplication and "go-zin-ta's", as in "five gozinta five one times, five gozinta ten two times," etc. After that, he decided to go to college. He managed to enroll late in the semester at a local secretarial school due to his financial backing and earned his diploma by the end of the day because he didn't understand what was going on in class and was too disruptive. (This was an in-joke—in real life Max Baer, Jr., has a Masters degree).
Many stories in the series involved Jethro's endless career search, which included such diverse vocations as brain surgeon, street car conductor, Double-naught spy, Hollywood producer (a studio flunky remarks Jethro has the right qualifications for being a producer-a 6th grade education and his uncle owns the studio. The in-joke gag of Jethro as a movie producer was replayed in the 1981 movie), soda jerk, short order cook, and once as a bookkeeper for Milburn Drysdale's bank. More often than not, his overall goal in these endeavors was to obtain as many pretty girls as humanly possible, which were usually the catalyst that prompted him to do so. While working as a producer, Jethro called himself "Beef Jerky", a wannabe playboy and man-about-town sophisticate. Out of all the Clampett clan, he was the one who made the most changes from 'country bumpkin' to 'city boy.' Another running gag is that Jethro was known as the "six foot stomach" for his ability to eat: in one episode he ate a jetliner's entire supply of steaks; in another episode Jethro tried to set himself up as a Hollywood agent for cousin "Bessie"-with a fee of 10,000 bananas for Bessie and 1,000 bananas for Jethro. Jed once mentioned that Jethro was the only baby he knew born with a full set of teeth. Jethro could never succeed in any career he tried. Jethro appears in 273 episodes; he is not in the second-to-last episode but Baer of course remains billed in the title credits. Baer claimed he only auditioned for the role of Jethro for fun, and never expected to get the part. Supposedly, he clinched the part largely because of his grin.